BlackBerry Native

Analyze your apps using profiling

Published: August 14th, 2013

Measure and maximize your app's performance

No matter what type of BlackBerry 10 app you're creating, you want to make sure that it's performing as well as it can. In this article, we'll highlight the tools that you can use to profile your app and find areas that might need a tune-up.

Profiling vs. debugging

There are several ways that you can make sure that your app works the way you expect. You're probably already familiar with debugging, which involves finding errors in your code that affect the correct execution of your app. These errors might be syntax errors, memory allocation errors, and so on. You can use debugging tools that are included in the Momentics IDE to help you debug your apps. To learn about these tools, see the Cascades documentation and core documentation on debugging.

Profiling is a bit different. Profiling tools let you examine the overall performance of your apps, without following the code one line at a time. A debugger helps you find errors in your code, while a profiler helps you identify areas that could run more efficiently. This lets you find critical bottlenecks that might be slowing down your app and preventing you from reaching that ideal user experience that you're looking for.

Depending on the type of app you're creating, you can use two different profiling tools, both of which are available as part of the BlackBerry 10 Native SDK and the Momentics IDE.

Screen shot showing the Tools selection dialog box in the Momentics IDE.

Cascades Profiler

If you're developing a Cascades app, you can use the Cascades Profiler. This tool is specifically designed to work with Cascades QML apps, and it can show you information about frame rendering, loading and compiling QML files, QML bindings, and much more.

To learn how to use this tool effectively, check out the Cascades Profiler documentation.

Screen shot showing the Events view in the Cascades Profiler.

Application Profiler

If you're developing an app that uses core APIs, you can use the Application Profiler. This tool helps you obtain performance information about your C/C++ app, including function run times, call counts, and so on, and presents this information in a graphical format.

To learn about the features of this tool and how to use it, take a look at the Application Profiler documentation.

Screen shot showing the Execution time view in the Application Profiler.

4. Educate yourself

The Documentation tab contains tons of examples, tutorials, and best practices to guide you along the path towards building an awesome app.

The documentation for your preferred focus always appears at the top of the left-hand navigation, but you can still access the rest of the documentation at the bottom.

5. Start developing

The Reference tab is where you'll find essential details about how to use our APIs.

You can use the left-hand navigation to choose how you would like to browse the reference: by module, by topic, or alphabetically. If you have an idea of what you are looking for, start typing it in the Filter box.